The last Broadway show of 2025, “All Out,” has provoked complaints anew about high ticket prices, at the same time that a new study concludes “affordability challenges for artists have reached a breaking point,” and CNN reports that “Broadway musicals are now struggling to make a profit” The crisis in affordability, in other words, affects everybody involved in theater.
Theatergoers: “For many residents, live performance has shifted from a regular part of city life to an occasional luxury—with significant consequences for venues and presenting organizations of all sizes,” according to Creative New York, a report by the Center for an Urban Future.
Theater artists and theater workers: The Public Theater is “undergoing its third round of layoffso in four years,” according to Broadway Journal. Since the pandemic, there has been a more than four percent decrease in the city’s resident artist population, including an eight percent drop in actors and an 18.8 percent decline in dancers, according to the Creative New York study.
Theater companies: “Nearly 50 theaters, music clubs, museums, and galleries have shuttered since 2020, many pointing to lasting changes in audience behavior, soaring insurance costs, and other unsustainable operating pressures.”
Theater producers face “rising costs from theater rent, fees, labor and even lumber, which has roughly doubled in price since December 2016. Meanwhile, ticket prices haven’t risen quickly enough to offset these costs.” (CNN)
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“All Out,” much like last year’s “All In,” has generated accusations of a “cynical cash grab,” in the words of a poster in a theater chatroom outraged by ticket prices as high as $320 for a “lazy” 80-minute show, during which four celebrities read some dozen short stories by Simon Rich, interspersed with songs by the band Lawrence…..Would theatergoers find “All Out: Comedy about Ambition” enjoyable if the tickets were more affordable? To test this hypothesis, I entered the lottery, won, and saw the show for $45. For me, the answer is largely yes: If you know what to expect, the show is sufficiently entertaining to feel worth the (80 minute) time and ($45) expense, not least because it is almost as much a concert of original songs by Lawrence, a lively eight-member band led by the siblings Clyde Lawrence and Gracie Lawrence, who is a standout here as she was in the Broadway musical “Just in Time,” where she portrayed Connie Francis.
The day after I saw the Radio City Christmas Spectacular for the first time in decades, I attended the New York Nutcracker for the first time ever. Both were holiday shows, though one cost up to $700, the other was free; one has been around since 1933, offering as many as five showings a day for eight weeks every year; the other, one-night-only; one, a family show; the other… not.
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“Beaches, A New Musical,” starring Jessica Vosk and Kelli Barrett as best friends since childhood, is opening on Broadway April 22, The new musical (based on Iris Rainer Dart’s 1985 novel that became a 1988 movie) brings to 16 the number of shows scheduled for Broadway in Spring 2026.
“Becky Shaw,” opening at the Helen Hayes on April 6, will feature Patrick Ball (HBO Max’s The Pitt) as Andrew, Alden Ehrenreich (Weapons) as Max, and Linda Emond (three-time Tony Award nominee for Life x 3, Death of a Salesman, Cabaret) as Susan. Mr. Ball and Mr. Ehrenreich will both be making their Broadway debuts. Casting for the roles of Suzanna and Becky will be announced in the coming weeks.
The War on Culture
The board for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts announced that it would now be named the Trump-Kennedy Center, although a formal change may have to be approved by Congress. (NYTimes)
Senator Van Hollen (D-Maryland) vows amendment to remove Trump’s name from Kennedy Center (Newsweek)
“Democrats, Kennedy family members, and arts advocates condemned the move, arguing the board lacks authority to rename the federally designated memorial without congressional action and that Trump isn’t an ally of the arts, notably having canceled National Endowment for Arts (NEA) grants earlier this year.”
‘Theater Kid’ Is the New Go-To Political Insult (NYTimes)
Zohran Mamdani, New York’s mayor-elect, is among the latest politicians to be tagged with the term, raising the question: What did theater kids do to deserve such scorn?
“Daniel Pollack-Pelzner, the author of a recent biography of Lin-Manuel Miranda, said that using the term was part of a larger culture battle ‘A lot of kids playfully adopt the ‘theater kid’ moniker, even with its tinge of attention-seeking excess, because theater offers a space for performing a wider range of emotions and identities than much of our society allows,’ Mr. Pollack-Pelzner said in an email. ‘Since right-wingers want to crack down on exploring gender, race and sexuality in schools, it’s sadly not surprising that they’d try to wield ‘theater kid’ as an insult to discredit progressive politics.’
